Loading

In Thailand, for nearly two months now, the Khao Khiaw Open Zoo in Chonburi, east of the capital Bangkok, has been experiencing a period of sudden notoriety: admissions have increased by 30 percent, long lines of people and cars form on weekends, and videos and photos from its social media channels are viewed by a huge number of people around the world. The culprit is Moo Daeng, a baby pygmy hippo born at the zoo who has instantly become an internet celebrity, first in Thailand and then elsewhere. His fame, which has grown exponentially on social media, has caused some administrative problems at the zoo.

Moo Deng has been photographed and filmed on social media ever since. From the first days of lifeAt the end of July. The zoo directors know that some cubs can attract a lot of attention, and thus increase admissions: this always happens with baby pandas, but also with other animals. Before his birth, twenty thousand people voted for his name in a Facebook poll, a Thai dish based on pork and known for its tenderness, which can more or less be translated as “live pork”. The other pygmy hippos born in captivity at the zoo (and with whom Moo Deng shares either his mother or his father) are also named after Thai pork dishes: there is Moo Wan (sweet Thai pork), Pha Lor (stewed pork belly) and Mo Ton (stewed pork).

After his birth, Moo Deng's cuteness almost unexpectedly led to a surge in views of the zoo's videos and photos: some of them have racked up millions of views. On FacebookWhile the channel Tik Tok He has over 2.6 million followers. Already during the pandemic, the zoo started posting photos of the animals it houses online, and thus became very popular, at least in Thailand.

However, the pygmy hippopotamus cub has given this phenomenon a whole other dimension, which also has implications for the daily management of the zoo: only on Saturdays do visitors visit the park. There were 12 thousandMoreover, almost everyone who comes to see Moo Deng finds her sleeping, since like all pups she spends most of the day sleeping and her activity phases are limited. However, pygmy hippos are nocturnal animals and spend a large part of the day sleeping until they reach adulthood.

Zoo directors refers to two moments The days when you are most likely to find Moo Deng awake: between 8 and 9 a.m., when attendants clean the area where the pygmy hippos are confined with jets of water, and in the early afternoon, when they feed the pygmies. Their mother (Moo Deng follows her around and rarely leaves her side.) Moo Deng weighs 20 kilograms and is fed only breast milk: he is expected to start eating grass within a month.

Due to Moo Deng's popularity, the zoo had to hold shifts, so it was possible to monitor the hippo area. for a maximum of five minutes (Then leave room for other visitors); a CCTV system had to be set up and a staff member had to be present in the area at all times. In fact, in the early days, one visitor threw water at the sleeping Mu Ding and another tried to wake her up by throwing projectiles at her. It seemed that they wanted to see her at work, as seen in the videos online, and take pictures of her.

Pygmy hippos are native to West Africa, and are considered a threatened species according to the IUCN Red List: it is believed that only about 2,000 of them live in the wild, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast.